Duke Professor Rebuffed Pakistanis

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, December 20, 2001

A Duke University professor rebuffed three Pakistani students who inquired via e-mail about medical lab jobs, replying: "It is not worth our trouble to try to determine if you are a well-disguised terrorist."

Michael Reedy, a cell-biology professor who has worked at Duke for 32 years, said Thursday that he regretted his reply. He said he has since volunteered to help find the Pakistani students positions at Duke.

"I was distressed beyond words by the futility of the deaths of suicide bombers," he said. "My imagination was headed in a paranoid direction rather than a healing direction."

Reedy sent the e-mail reply Dec. 6, shortly after the country was placed on heightened alert for further terrorist activity following the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the e-mail, he told the students from Aga Khan University Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan: "Your ethnicity and your age … are so similar to those of jihad-minded terrorists from the schools that nurtured the Taliban and Al-Quaeda that it is not worth our trouble to try to determine if you are a well-disguised terrorist or a real learning-motivated medical student."

Reedy and R. Sanders Williams, the medical school dean, apologized to the students, and Williams is investigating. Williams also sent a memo to department chairmen to remind them of the medical school's commitment to diversity.

"The students who wanted to come and be a part of our academic community will now think differently about our institution," the letter says. "While none of us will ever forget the events of September 11th, we must not withdraw from efforts to promote greater understanding within the international community."

Reedy said one of the Pakistani students responded that he didn't expect such anger from a faculty member.